Monday, December 29, 2008

It all started last Friday night after a movie with Andrew and Keat, when I jokingly suggested we spend the whole of Saturday at Ubin, fishing. They both welcomed the idea and before we even realised it, we were on our way to our local supermarket to get the foodstuff needed in the middle of the night.

Went back to Keat's place, stocked our stuff and managed our gears, and by 7am we were heading to the East side of Singapore. It's hard to believe, but it actually is happening. I'm on my first fishing trip in Singapore!

Leaving for MRT station

The train ride to the East most station of Singapore was uneventful, however the adventure truly started as soon as we alighted the station.

According to my official-fishing tour-route navigator, all we need to do is keep a lookout for either any one of this buses- 2, 2A, 29, 59, 109 and one more. Thing is, none of this bus is stationed at this interchange and we found our self switching to Plan B.

Anyway, we asked around and finally found the light when we were told to take bus number 89 there( points at the main road). Literally, seriously.

Inside the bus, we somewhat cracked a joke about my fishing rod compared to this other uncle's fishing gear( which was twice the length and twice the amount). We even considered following him and perhaps he might just lead us to some secret fishing spot in Ubin( that's if he's actually heading there).

Jetty

We abandoned our plan as soon as he took a different route to the jetty as compared to us, of which we were heading there based on the bus driver's directions.

Fast forward the following events of going to the jetty la and our boat trip la, bla bla bla, we eventually reached Ubin. This being my first time stepping foot here, I'm equally as Kayu as Rahul or Andrew but not Keat. We rented the cheapest shit bicycle for a mere 3 dollars( whole day) and slowly took off to the nearby quarry pond.

Bye Singapore, Hi Ubin

We were there busy snapping pictures and considering our fishing potential at that place plus busy planning our next step, when the same uncle happen to came cycling past us. For a second or two, time stood still as I consider to chase or not to chase. After 1.56 seconds, I opted to chase and the rest is history. This is the absolute changing point.

I tailgated him as he cycled all the way into some isolated corner of the island, and after about 15 short minutes, we reached an open uphill area, where he came down from his bike. I did the same and was greeted almost immediately by him. Goin' fishin?

Barge, Sea and Land

Before we knew it, we had found our self an ally. On normal days, if you go into a forest with 3, and come out with 4, that's NOT good but today was a clear exception to that saying.

He brought us to a ancient rusted barge overlooking Singapore, and we settled there. The time then was 10am and the sun was already shining merciless. I knew there and then, we are up for a long, long day. It's quite like an irony, a mental game, of being surrounded by water but left burning under the cruel sun with no shelter whatsoever.

Having came with a white shirt and a loose jacket, I couldn't afford to drench any with sweat, so I fished the whole day bare body. It's quite cool actually too, except for the scorching heat of course.

Uncle , my Guru

While fishing, I had the chance to get to know the uncle better. He is at his 60 , has a wife and two kids and is a very active person for his age; he has been fishing for over 4o years, and when he's not fishing, he's a tennis trainer, a regular church goer and also cycles and runs on a regular. This is quite the ideal healthy lifestyle I've always admire.

First catch of the day- undersize so it was released.

Hours past and tides came and gone, and so did our catch. Fish were being raised one after another quite consistently throughout the whole day, and come evening, we had almost a dozen fishes. It is considered a very good return already under normal circumstances according to the uncle, and I couldn't agree more myself.

Box Fish( I forgot the real name)

Between us, we had raised 2 Box Fish, 6 Cat fish, 8 tiny Nemo-sized fish, 1 puffer fish and 1 commercial fish. That could have easily been much more had Uncle been more fortunate with the tonnes of misses he had the whole day, including 1 decent sized stingray pulling his line all around.

Of the lot, I'm proud to take claim of all the above fishes minus the two box fishes, lots of thanks to his experience and advice:)

We finally called it a day and went back at 5pm, and the Uncle also (insisted to) treat us all for a bowl of Changi Village Ice Kacang out of his sincerity for making his day colourful:).

More pictures of us fishing-

Our lunchbox

Ubin

Somehow this picture feels like we are some up-to-no-good drug traffickers, maybe a little Mas Selamat too.

Rusted Barge

Transferring of knowledge

Spidey

Andrew made a note-in-a-bottle with his house address, Keat's handphone number and my blog address in it.And throws it into the sea.Fishing with style

Fishing in progress

Puffer Fish( dangerous)

My last catch of the day, a freakin commercial fish! Eventhough it's small in size, it gave the strongest fight.

SUPER SHAGGED Jordan with Pro Uncle. Is that me of the future?

I'm so grateful the day turned out to be this way, not only have I accomplished on of my personal aims today, I've also finally found a pro fishing kaki whom I can learn the art of fishing from. It's just the day like in your sweetest of dreams , only it's mine and it's not a dream.

I foresee myself going back there again in the future for more fishing fun.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

I've been very busy this weekend again, really that busy till I didn't have the time to blog about my current happenings. I don't have the time to blog about it all now, so I'll just put it in point form and maybe get back to it when I'm free.

1. On Friday, I went to find a old Malaysia friend of mine who came down to Singapore to celebrate her Christmas at Orchard. I found her, AND also my auntie there. Apparently she came with her parents who's friend is my mum's brother's wife. Yah. Amazing.

2. Went for a movie after that, came back at 3 when me, Andrew and Keat agreed to go to Pulau Ubin the next day.

3. And so we did. It turned out to be an amazing enjoyable fishing trip.

4. In the process too, I got myself some serious sun burn for fishing bare body the whole afternoon. Great.

5. Today, went out to find my other Japanese friend, Nozomi and spend valuable time with her. I'm not sure if I'll ever see her again but heck, I live by the moment.

I'm planning to do a complete blog entry on the fishing trip since I've a great amount of pictures about it, but still finding the time to do it. Till then, bye.Over and out.

I've bought some mussel , wanted to barbecue them like how I did for the chicken wings then, but now I'm lost of ideas on how to cook them. I'm also imagining how they are gonna rot in the fridge and be overwhelmed by freaking maggots yikes.

Maybe I should just dip them in black soy sauce or honey and barbecue them. Or maybe boil them then eat it hot. Or boil them, then cook together with Campbell's soup. But maybe the mussel will ruin the taste of it, how?

I seriously don't know, someone tell me?

Urge to go FishingFishing since : ForeverUrge since : Not sure, overnight maybe?

I love fishing. In recent nights I've been dreaming about fishing the shit out of them fishes . Reality isn't that sweet actually. Despite being full equipped with the gears,

1. I don't know where to fish in Singapore( real fishing please, I don't do fishing at the beach or pay ponds)2. I don't have any fishing kaki, other than Keat. Who is my kaki to everything, that doesn't count actually.3. Find time is hard too, since it's a hectic period lately.4. Budget. How? Anyone wants to donate for my fishing expedition? Lol.

We happened to have our umbrellas with us so we did the Spartans-300 defensive stand only to provoked them to get shot even more xD. This is what I call fun, fun fun!

Lol!

If you're wondering why I've made it all into one big picture instead of multiple pictures, that's because they all are pretty much the same thing. As I told Melvin 'Martini ' Yak and Keat, the pictures and videos all bear little significance once the atmosphere is over. It's true.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Went to Johore whole of yesterday. Snapped lots of pictures so I figured I might as well share it here. View on.

The new immegration checkpoint. They are trying to be a Singapore maybe. Too little people but simply too big.

Johore ice kacang. Cost about Rm 2.50/ $ 1.1 and taste really great. It's chocolate all over the top for your info.

Fried noodles, Rm 3.50. Another great bargain for those living in Singapore by any standards.

Went to the Sultan's garden after our lunch and played around there. Wonderful place.

Sultan's playground :)

A pond. With fishes. I spotted them first, damnit.

And they live eating my shit. LOL

Anyway, there's Rahul , Priscilla and me with the typical malaysian mentality- no risks, no thrills.

This place reminds me of my Indonesia trip last year, where everything is too good to be true. Like the garden as big as ..big la. It's simply too real to be fake. Lol.

Here is me and the other two posing accordingly to the demand of the place. Or something like that la. I wanted to walk in the pond too and gay with the statue but I couldn't see the base of the pond.. lol.

Reached the hilltop after some long journey. Here I am caught starring at blank space again.

The reason is because the scinery is simply breathetaking. As in the sea, in abundance. I can imagine all the fishes calling to be fished out there, typical jordan style.

Somewhere along the way we found a forest path again. With me and Rahul, it's very obvious we had to explore it. I found a well. Well, a well which used to be a well. It's sealed up maybe because of some suicide case or something.

Ah ha. And my personal achivement of the day- I've gotten a pair or slippers for a mere 4 ringgit, or 1.80 dollar. Nothing like this , ever, in Singapore.

We went for a movie, and after that Prisc drove us to a local roadside stall. Typical Malay malaysian food, simply awesome. That, together with the drinks and all, cost Rm5, about 2.1o dollar. Another achivement by any Singapore standards.

I had to buy this too, Cendol in cup. Cost RM 1, or $0.4o. Siao.

Posing to the background, remember, I'm still a Malaysian afterall.

Went and pick up Melvin who had just arrived back from Perak. It doesn't get much better than this with the clique reunited once again.

Finally we ended up at Danga Bay, a stretch of beach overlooking Singapore.